Procedural modeling offers the ability to generate and texture detailed 3D buildings and street geometries out of 2D data. Driven by rules, the procedural modeling core can leverage your own textures and 3D assets, and the use of predefined styles makes it easy to change rule settings in just a few clicks.

Rules files (.cga) are authored and modified in the Rule Editor. The scripting editor includes features such as syntax highlighting and command completion. The node-based visual interface also allows exploring and editing rules graphically.

Raster-based terrains and height maps can be imported, edited or exported as a polygon mesh. Arbitrary image/raster maps can be used to control selection, parametric streets and blocks, or the rule-based models generation.

For integration with 3D/CAD applications, CityEngine supports the well-known formats OBJ, 3DS and DXF, as well as VOB for e-on software's Vue. The exporter can collect textures into a single folder for easy re-use and sharing with other tools.

Street networks and footprints of real world cities can be imported for free from OpenStreetMap into CityEngine. This allows for a quick generation of urban surroundings based on existing streets or building footprints.

Import GIS data, such as streets, building footprints and parcels, into CityEngine from either Esri File Geodatabase (.gdb) or Shapefile (.shp) format. Feature attributes can also be imported and used to drive the procedural rules.

Customized rule-based reports can be generated to analyze urban designs, including the calculation of important urban properties such as GFA (Gross Floor Area), FAR (Floor Area Ratio), etc. Reports are updated automatically and instantaneously.

Interactively author building facade rules out of an image or an existing textured model. The resulting facade rules are size-independent and can therefore be applied to other building designs. The rules can be easily extended with more detailed window models, as well as provide summary information for reports.

The industry-standard formats Collada (1.4.1) and Autodesk FBX (2012.1; export only) allow for flawless 3D data exchange. Supported features include advanced materials, asset instancing, multiple UV-sets, grouping or binary encoding. Constructed 3D content can also be exported out to Pixar's RenderMan (.rib). The exporter can collect textures into a single folder for easy re-use and sharing of the generated models with other software packages.

CityEngine network/floating licenses are well suited for multi-user environments. Licenses are not bound to specific computers, and can be obtained on demand (powered by FLEXnet licensing system). To be able to run CityEngine in offline environments as well, floating licenses can be conveniently "borrowed" by checking out a license temporarily.

CityEngine tutorials are a convenient starting point for learning CityEngine, quickly helping you develop the skills to take full advantage of CityEngine's vast capabilities. The step-by-step lessons are accompanied by tutorial videos.

CityEngine comes with inspiring example cities and building rules that demonstrate different methods for creating detailed 3D cities via parametric modeling only. Included are ancient, contemporary and future cities at different levels of detail.

CityEngine comes with an expansive Help system consisting of: a quick start guide, a technical manual with in-depth descriptions; and a reference of the procedural rule operations. The help documentation system is available online and offline.